Moffatt! Nooo!!

If you have read even a few posts on this blog, you'll know by now that I am a rabid fan of BBC television, especially Doctor Who and Sherlock. When I fall for something, I fall hard. I think about it all day. I dream about it all night. I lose friends over it. I talk about it all the time, with anybody who will listen, and some people who won't. 

So I made sure to watch the Doctor Who 50th anniversary show and the Christmas special, and Sherlock's Season 3, as soon as possible and in some cases even sooner (thanks to the slightly nefarious actions of some tech-savvy friends).  

Please DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU ARE ALL CAUGHT UP on both shows, as this post contains MAJOR SPOILERS.

First of all, let me assert that I love these new episodes. I laughed and cried with the rest of you. I had tons of fun. They are probably way above all other television out there (but since I don't watch much other television, I wouldn't know). 

But they don't measure up to their own standard. In my opinion, these latest installments were much poorer art than preceding material. I've already discussed this with several friends over on facebook, so thanks to those I am be plagiarizing! 

Here are some reasons: 
 
1. They were cobbled together from bits of fan-food. I'm not arguing for a general rule that fan-fiction is a poor genre or that art is made bad because of fan input; not at all. As The Tolkien Professor points out in his latest Riddles in the Dark episode, some of the greatest works of literature in the history of the world have been fan fiction, such as Virgil's Aeneid and most of Shakespeare's plays! However, I am arguing that in these two cases, the art has been made worse by the ways in which fan input has been tacked on.  Whatever fans were clamoring for, we got it. 

They've gotten away from really good story-telling and instead are feeding us sound bites (and picture bites) of snacky stuff. The story reads as if it were a collage of blog posts by fans over the last year. 

You want to see Benedict kiss somebody? OK. You want to see him shirtless? OK (even though he's super scrawny and the color of a dead fish). You want to see your favorite villain back, even though he's dead? OK. Death, no, not a problem here.

You want more regenerations? OK. You want James Bond-style action? OK. You want lots of Doctors together regardless of what nonsense ensues? OK. And so on.

2. They contained very cliched material, poorly integrated into the fabric of the plot.
The James Bond sequence of riding the motorcycle and pulling John out of the fire in Sherlock 3.1 is one of the worst examples of this. Even worse again was the scene lifted straight from V for Vendetta: the Guy Fawkes lets-blow-up-parliament-with-a-subway-carriage sequence. That was poor writing, unoriginal, and poorly integrated with the rest of the story.  

But what I object to most of all is:
3. The internal rules of the imaginary worlds are broken.

Here is an example from earlier in Doctor Who series 7. In "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe," the exact same thing happens that had happened in "Father's Day"--going back in time and doing something so the father doesn't die--with no bad consequences, although previously it caused the end of the human race and the universe being ripped apart!

Here is the biggest offense in Sherlock: Bringing back Moriarty. Now we have no parameters for judging reality in the show. Faking Sherlock's death was one thing. Faking everybody else's randomly is unfair according to the rules of the visual medium's game. 

One rule is that SHERLOCK ALWAYS WINS. It's essential to the story (and to its morality, I could argue) that Sherlock is always one step ahead of Moriarty. Let me expound.

I don't know whether Sherlock was actually fooled by the rhythm from Bach's partita, and I do think that Moriarty's suicide came as a shock to him. So Sherlock does not always need to be ahead of his enemies on every point. 

However, the main rule of the show is that Sherlock will always win in the end. Think of the woman: "Everything I said--it was just a game." "And this is just losing." So no matter how many times and in how many ways Moriarty fooled Sherlock along the way, Sherlock was ahead of him on the biggest point, on the only point that really mattered: He figured out long ahead of time that his death would be required, so he figured out how to fake it. If it turns out that Moriarty did the same, well then, the #1 rule is broken: Sherlock did not win.

If, however, it turns out that Sherlock and Moriarty planned their two fake deaths together (because SH knew he would need JM as a reason to come home and to keep the game going) then that just puts the whole show onto a different plane, with a different tone, maybe even a different genre, and would have serious moral consequences.

Two faked deaths would also have another serious (and, I would argue, bad) consequence. It would mean that we, the viewers, could not believe our eyes. And that's what we've got in a visual medium: Our eyes. Thus, the second rule is that we have to be able to believe what we see. 

If we see someone put a gun into his mouth and pull the trigger, then we see the resulting fall and pool of blood, that is evidence of his death. True, we didn't see the wound, the hole: that would be too graphic for this genre, for television. I wouldn't want to see that. Yet we were given full visual evidence within the parameters, that JM was really dead. If he isn't, then we no longer have a standard for judging reality. We no longer had any foundation on which to stand. We didn't even see any blood with Magnussen's death; we just heard the shot and saw him fall. So maybe he's not dead either? Maybe nobody dies, ever. Maybe they get regenerated.

Of course, we can always be fooled within the visual medium as long as the pieces tie together and other, more reliable evidence is given. For example: the viewer can be shown a dream, daydream, fantasy, hallucination, or memory -- but some visual or textual evidence always puts that into its context. We might see the hallucination disappear into the character's eye, or text might read "Three days earlier...." If we are given conflicting evidence, as in Inception, that is part of the genre, part of the particularity of that individual work.

Sherlock needs to operate within a framework of realism in a way that Doctor Who doesn't. Otherwise, the science of deduction is useless. 



What I am talking about is a kind of cheating within the genre that drives me crazy: Like a murder mystery that reveals at the end that the murderer wasn't among the suspects all along, but was a stranger only introduced after his identity as murderer has been revealed. That's not fair.

Review of "The Hobbit" and Report on Mythmoot

I have written a little review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; it is published here, on Curator. In this article, I also summarize my experience at The Tolkien Professor's conference this past weekend, called "Mythmoot II."

You may also be interested these articles I wrote last year:
"Packing for an Unexpected Journey"
"Embellishment is an Understatement"
"Showing Us Our Inconsistent Selves"

or these lectures:
"Where is The Hobbit? Tolkien's Fantastical Geography"
"J.R.R. Tolkien, Myth-Maker"

2013 movies: "The Great Gatsby"

As this year is wrapping up, I think I'll review a few of the movies I saw throughout 2013. Maybe some of them will win Oscars? 

 

Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, and Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway) is a remarkably literal adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel. I have rarely seen a film that followed its source-book as faithfully, except for settings of Shakespeare's plays. Of course, Lehrmann is known for his brilliant and bizarre Romeo + Juliet (1996)--yet even his wildly original twist on the old tale followed this unspoken rule about adapting Shakespeare: You can cut out as many lines as you like, you can interpret the words as strangely as their ambiguities will allow (visually, verbally, physically), and you can even cut-and-paste the order of lines and scenes—but you may never, ever add new words to Shakespeare's text. Lehrmann followed this rule a little more loosely in The Great Gatsby, and both his additions and his wooden fidelity together constitute a commentary on the current state of American education: a song of praise for the writer's power, and a lament for the loss of Classical learning.

The most obvious departure from the book comes in the frame-narrative: the story of pathetic Nick Carraway, voyeur, pander, morbid alcoholic, locked in a sanitarium to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet Nick is an author, writing as therapy—and narrating the entire film via an invasive voice-over. As the movie closes, he finishes the typescript, revealing its title, Gatsby, before penning in The Great. Nick, then, is both a character in the story, deeply implicated in his friends' guilty actions, and the storyteller who evokes a time gone by and a man with extraordinary dreams. The impact of this trope strikes in two opposite directions: on the one hand, it reinforces the stereotype of the drunk, mentally-ill writer who can't cope with life. On the other hand, it revives the Romantic concept of the inspired writer as a sort of demi-god, creating worlds with his words. More than most screen adaptations of novels, then, The Great Gatsby screams at its audience: READ THE BOOK!

Yet, sadly, the literal, plodding nature of the voice-over narration serves as witness that people don't read books, or if they do, they don't do so with the powers of analysis that use to be expected of a literate, educated generation. Maguire explains everything, telling the viewer what to think, expounding character's thoughts and feelings rather than letting the actors reveal them through their subtle arts, and (most annoyingly) interpreting emblems. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us,” he declaims, substituting exposition of the metaphor for subtle resonance. Clearly, this movie was made for a generation that does not want to interpret visual symbols for itself.

But then again, the book rather bashes the reader over the head with its own wooden literalism, interpreting events and leaving no room for either misunderstanding or subtle application. “I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler” Nick announces after someone first asks him directions in West Egg. A more profound novelist would leave that conclusion, or some other, for the reader to draw. A more profound novelist would trust his readers more. Perhaps that is why this movie was made, now, for this generation: with our left-over poetolatry but without a classical education, what we want is literal interpretations of simple novels, narrated, interpreted, packaged, and delivered. That way we can feel sophisticated without having to think too hard.

Don't Shoot!

I wrote a piece about gun violence and the movies for Curator magazine.
Part 1 is available http://www.curatormagazine.com/sorinahiggins/dont-shoot/>here
, and Part 2 is http://www.curatormagazine.com/sorinahiggins/dont-shoot-2/. 
Here is a quick preview of part 1: 
I decided to conduct a thought experiment, to ask a hypothetical question: What would happen if everyone in the film industry voluntarily covenanted not to show positive gun violence for a year? If there were no movies, at all, for a whole year, in which gun violence was shown to be funny, cool, sexy, manly, stylish, casual, or inconsequential—what would happen? If shooting people was not shown to be a viable escape from personal problems—would such incidents decrease? If the only gun violence depicted was evil and catastrophic—would this serve as a deterrent to potential shooters? And what would happen to box office sales, movie attendance, the artistic freedom of movie-makers, and the artistry of films, in such an imaginary case?

I put these questions to several people in the film industry. Their responses included skepticism that such an abstinence could ever happen but an intelligent curiosity about what the artistic and social results might be if it did. There was something like agreement that the movies might be better, and we might all be safer.

My "packing list" for the first Hobbit movie came out on The Curator today! Here is a summary--actually, just the "packing list" itself; please enjoy the whole article over there, then come back and leave my your thoughts. And remember that I am hosting two Hobbit-related events locally; you can RSVP on these facebook event pages: 

The Hobbit "Riddles in the Dark" Predictions game

Private Screening of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"!

Packing for “An Unexpected Journey”

Here are some suggestions for what to bring and what to leave behind.
1. Pack A Theory of Adaptation

2. Leave The Hobbit at home

 

3. Pack the appendixes to LOTR, along with “The Quest of Erebor” and “The Istari” in Unfinished Tales

 4. Leave The Silmarillion at home

5. Pack The Tolkien Professor’s “Riddles in the Dark” podcast 

 

6. Leave your spouse at home

 

7. Pack a lunch

Two Hobbit-related Events!

To my local (Eastern PA-area) readers: 

You are invited to two very exciting events to celebrate (and critique) the release of Peter Jackson's film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Both of these are public events on facebook, so you can RSVP there and invite your friends.

I. The Hobbit "Riddles in the Dark" Predictions game

Monday, Dec 10th, 4-6 pm

Lehigh Carbon Community College, Science Hall Room 144

 

Join me 4 days before the film debut for a hilarious, lively, multi-media contest to predict how Peter Jackson & Co. will depict J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"! This evening will use the TV spots and trailers, references to many of Tolkien's published works, and the "Riddles in the Dark Predictions Game" facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/RITDpredictions) to speculate about various aspects of character, plot, and tone in the upcoming movie. Tolkien nerds, LOTR movie fans, and the uninitiated are equally welcome! 

Attendees will be invited to make a $1 donation towards the rental of the room. You may wish to bring a laptop or other digital device to follow along on the facebook page and record your votes during the game. You may want to prepare for this event by listening to The Tolkien Professor's "Riddles in the Dark" podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tolkien-professor/id320513707. Of course, reading or re-reading "The Hobbit" is a great idea! Here is a full text online: http://ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__the_hobbit__en.htm.

II. Private Screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey!

Monday, Dec 17th, 6:30 pm

The Rave Cinema at the Promenade, Center Valley, PA

 

Join me to watch the new Hobbit movie in a private screening of our own, at a reduced group-rate ticket price! This is the movie of the year, and a serious motion picture event for all fans and scholar of The Inklings. Don't miss this chance to see the movie with me and talk about it endlessly for weeks afterwards!

The movie starts at 7:00 pm; seating in our theatre begins at 6:30. We need at least 50 people to get the special rate, so please invite your friends. Tickets cost $9.50; email me at iambic dot admonit at gmail dot com to make arrangements to get the money to me by Dec 1st. 

We hope to retire to a noisy corner of Starbucks afterwards to analyze the film (i.e., talk it to death). If you can attend the Riddles in the Dark Predictions Game the week before (http://www.facebook.com/events/445143812214875/), bring your riddles answers to the movie, because we will discuss them afterwards and choose a winner. You may want to prepare for this event by listening to The Tolkien Professor's "Riddles in the Dark" podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tolkien-professor/id320513707. Of course, reading or re-reading "The Hobbit" is a great idea! Here is a full text online: http://ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__the_hobbit__en.htm.

A Matter of Perspective

I read all three volumes of The Hunger Games this summer, then just watched the first film recently. I'd like to share my interpretation of the moral message of the books vs. that of the film, and I think this message turns on the matter of perspective.


First, my thoughts on the books. I'll leave aside discussion of the writing style; others have done that (see, for example, here, here, and this GREAT one.


As I read through the series, I was appalled. Of course, I was appalled for all the right reasons--that is, I was sickened by things that were supposed to sicken me: the horrors of the [gladiatorial] arena, the de-valuing of life, the culture's voyeurism of violence, and so forth.

But I was also horrifed by aspects that I did not expect. In particular, I was not persuaded that The Hunger Games is a morality tale. I was not persuaded that the books actually condemned the acts they pretended to condemn. In short, I felt as if Collins herself was reveling in the violence, relishing the bloody bits, and wallowing in the brutality. In the back of my mind, I had the kind of feeling I get when a middle-school boy (or a middle-aged man, for that matter) yells "All right!" when beheadings and other gory deaths occur onscreen.


In addition, Katniss's descent into moral degradation throughout the series did not (I thought) serve as a moral warning. It should have done: the message who that those who make war, however justified, become like the very oppressors they seek to overthrow. That was the message, but I didn't think it struck home.

And then I watched the movie.


This is one of those rare occasions when I have loved a film adaptation of a book. I thought it was splendid. I also thought that the moral message was loud and clear (as it should be! – I don't think this is one of those messages that needs to “steal past watchful dragons” and be expressed in subtle hints). You know why?


I think it's because Katniss was not the narrator, so the reader/viewer did not inhabit Katniss's cauterized conscience and stunted worldview. The audience was—OK, I'll speak for myself: I was—able to maintain a moral distance from the events and thus condemn them clearly, in good conscience.


Living inside Katniss's conscience was not a comfortable experience.


And now that I've written that, I realize that such discomfort is itself carries the potential for a moral awakening, and perhaps a more subtle one than the obvious message about not killing kids. This is the moral message that even an admirable person such as Katniss will inevitably corrupted by her context. A strong-willed, courageous, right-minded child brought up in a twisted society will become twisted.


So the perspective makes all the difference, but not exactly the difference I thought it did at first.


I love how writing writes me into new ideas!

Sight & Sound's Top 250 Films

Every decade since 1952, Sight & Sound, the international film magazine, has conducted a worldwide poll of film critics to determine "which films are currently regarded as the greatest ever made." The list they produce is "widely regarded as the most trusted guide there is to the canon of cinema greats." Citizen Kane, which has been at the top of the list since 1962, has been bumped out of first place. Tree of Life, my favorite film of all time, has made it onto the list. In addition to polling critics, Sight & Sound also invites directors to share their top ten films. The full interactive list of directors' top ten films is not up yet, but the list of 250 top films as chosen by critics is available now. The other will be available next week. For now all you can see is the top ten films of all time according to directors.

Batman and violence

As I'm sure every sane person is, I'm kind of reeling from news of the tragic shooting in Colorado this morning. I've been praying, in a sort of almost subconscious murmur, for -- what? Healing for the wounded, comfort for the grieving, sanity in the collective response, justice for the criminal, probably?

I want to reflect a little bit on the film context of this horror, without -- of course -- assuming or suggesting that I have all the facts or any kind of particular insight into the event. And most of all without losing one ounce of my sympathy with the real human pain. But since this blog is on art and faith, it seems appropriate to reflect on a real-life incident in which art  and violence have been flung together into a meaningless partnership that just screams for faith to make sense out of it. 

First, I wonder what the right response is, as an empathetic human, to the tragedy. Put simply, should everybody go see the movie now, right away, tonight, as planned? Is it better to deny ourselves that one little pleasure, in order to reflect on the terrible losses? Or is it better to go out, to honor those people by not allowing a psychopath to interfere with art, with the reputation and profits of those who made the art, with a "normal" weekend life? Why should the movie-makers suffer as a result of one madman's evil?

But of course, it isn't nearly that simple. My going out or staying home doesn't make a difference to those who died. It doesn't make a difference to their families, or to those who are wounded. And if everyone stays home, or everyone goes out? It doesn't bring back or heal anyone. 

Any statement made by any particular moviegoer is ambiguous. The statement made by collective movie-goers is ambiguous. Neither a boycott nor a box-office record would make a simple statement. Actions are texts, and texts are subject to multiple interpretations. 

Textual actions as response are scattered over all the usual venues: social media, news channels, print media, public conversations. And how do we read those textual actions? There are calls for vengeance. Expressions of sympathy. Politically-slanted protest slogans.

Next, there is the movie itself. 

I do not know whether the particular movie played into whatever twisted noise-feed served in place of rational thought in the brain of the killer. I doubt that anyone knows, yet. And it really doesn't matter. If it did, if he chose that movie because he loved it, or hated it, or wanted to be in it, or simply because it has loud shoot-out scenes, what difference does that make?

It could make several kinds of difference, again, depending how we read it.

Here is one consideration. The Daily Beast writes that "descriptions of what happened—a deranged man in a gas mask opening fire on innocent victims—eerily mirrors a scene in the movie, where the evil, masked Bane (Tom Hardy) aims a machine gun at a crowd of people in Gotham City, massacring bystanders left and right." Other news articles reported that the killer was wearing "full black assault gear," like Batman? Or like the antagonists? 

Does that mean the movie bears even the tiniest bit of blame? Is Tom Hardy, or Christopher Nolan, or Warner Brothers, even the littlest bit responsible for, if not the killer's actions, at least his choice of staging, costume, casting, blocking, and narrative? 

Yes, maybe: If the killer had gone crazy in a previous blockbuster season, maybe he would have dressed up as an orc, or a stormtrooper, or a Sith lord. That hardly matters. Those are "accidental" characteristics of this crime, in the philosophical sense, not "essential" characteristics. The essentials resided in the evil imagination of the killer. The fact that he sought out accidentals and opportunity in Dark Knight Rises by no means implicates the movie in his crime, because....

No, absolutely not. The movie is not to blame...Because the point of the Batman movies is that crime is evil. Batman is fighting crime. The very purpose of the fictional world of these films is to create a scenario in which the hero can stop men just like this morning's madman. He missed the point. The point is not that shooting and death and mayhem are glorious. The point is precisely that they are not. 

The point is that the bad guys lose. 

If even one miniscule good thing comes out of this universe of horror, there is a chance that it might remove some of our unhealthy voyeurism-of-violence. I find that I can't even watch the trailers right now; they are too sickeningly like reality. I want to see the movie. I'm sure it's a brilliant piece of cinematic art; the first two were. I was going to see it tonight. But it's just to hard, humanly speaking, to watch a terrorist take off a black hood, revealing a gas mask and “full assault gear,” then walk into a football stadium and start blowing things up. It's too hard to watch bodies falling and hear people screaming. And that's good. I shouldn't enjoy violence. Even though I know (without actually knowing the ending) that the good guys win, in some sense or other, I should not enjoy watching the little people die. Every little person matters. Nobody in that theatre was Batman; nobody was the epic hero of our times. But there were heroes in there. There were members of the military, for starters. And each person who died took with him or her an entire universe of thoughts, feelings, and dreams. I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. There's a line in that book, when the man and the boy are walking along among burnt bodies. The man thinks something like, “So many thousands of unnumbered, unrealized dreams.” That's a huge part of the horror of death, from an earthly point of view. Each unfulfilled dream is now permanently unfulfilled. That is part of why we feel worse over the death of a young person; more dreams unfulfilled. For that reason, I hate our cultural insensitivity to the “expendability” of minor characters. Nameless deaths. Crowds wiped out. And we enjoy this as backdrop for our hero's dramatic rescue of the named characters, played by top-billed stars. We shouldn't enjoy that.

So I think it's probably OK to go see the movie. Maybe not right away. And certainly not with the usual callous attitude towards crowd violence. We should learn that lesson, at least.

Of Gods and Men

Outstanding review by Jeffrey Overstreet of the film "Of Gods and Men" in Comment Magazine. Just had to share it. (WARNING: Spoilers!)
Of Gods and Men

I saw the movie in 2010 when it first came out in the theaters, and it is well worth getting your hands on. Netflix has it, and here is the page for it on GoWatchIt, a great new site that lets you find where films are available, whether in theaters, online, or on DVD or Blu-Ray.



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2011 film recommendations

Here is a great list of films Stephen Graydanus recommends from 2011. I've actually only seen 4 on his main lists, and would push Harry Potter WAY further up. And you?


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New Orleans World War II Museum

NEW ORLEANS, DAY FOUR
THURSDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2011

The World War II Museum (also known as the D-Day Museum) is in New Orleans solely because of one guy, without whom the Allies would have either lost the war or gone about winning it in an entirely different way, and with whom I have a feeling of affinity based on shared names:
Andrew Jackson Higgins.

Probably no relation.
He designed the boats that were used on D-Day, and he lived in New Orleans and built his boats there. Hence the New Orleans connection.

Now, since this blog is supposed to be about art, I'm only going to tell you about one aspect of the Museum. It is a remarkable, sobering, informative place to visit and I highly recommend it. But I want to talk here about the use of art -- specifically, film -- in narrating human tragedy and horror.

Throughout the museum, there was a kind of visual theme in the use of film installations that I've not seen much elsewhere: the use of split screen. There were lots of small/short installations showing and/or narrating important moments of the War, such as the invasion of Normandy, and they all used split screen in one way or another.

Then there was the big highlight film, so important that visitors can buy a ticket for just the movie and skip the museum (or, as in our case, pay for both; but you don't just get the movie thrown in with museum admission). It's called Beyond All Boundaries, and it stars (if that's the right word) Tom Hanks. It's called a "4-D Experience" -- which wikipedia helpfully notes is not actually, geometrically, 4-dimenional -- involving chairs that shake, the actual nose of a bomber plane lowered in front of the screen, a real anti-aircraft gun, etc. While it is not 4-dimensional, it is a very powerful physical/emotional experience designed to put the viewer either into the position of a solider on the front lines or into the mood of some back home waiting in agonized suspense for news of the beloved solider on the front lines.

I'm a bit confused where to go from here. That's because I'm a bit confused about the purpose of such a film. Is it to make us sad that such an awful thing happened? Proud that our country survived such horrors? Impressed with the technology of the film? I felt some of each of those.

Then there's also the question of making art -- to make money -- out of suffering. Now, I don't suppose this one was designed to make money. And even though the admission price was the same as that of a normal movie theatre, I don't suppose it was for profit. Do you think this is an example of the cheap exploitation of suffering for the sake of something bordering on entertainment? I'm not sure.

On the other hand, part of what humans need to do in the face of horrors is to pass along the stories of those who suffered, in an attempt to preserve their memories and the enormity of what they accomplished. This film does do that.

What do you think?

-----------

On a related note, I do think that so-called 4-D is the wave of the future. I think we'll probably keeping combining 3-D visuals with more and more special, physical effects until that's the movie norm. Although you'll see from this list that the U.S.A. is way behind Asia and England in using these techniques.

It may be a while yet, but I'm guessing Huxley was right.




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